Disclaimer: Rory is my character, I own nothing else.
Chapter 2: Oh, goody. Slop.
I've eaten some pretty disgusting stuff. One foster home only gave me expired cans of tuna to eat for weeks on end. And you might think, well, expired tuna can't be THAT bad. But when it's months and months past the expiration date, it is NASTY. What's worse, I hate tuna. But after eating dinner at Camp Green Lake, I would've given just about anything for a can of expired tuna.
After I met the boys I went back into the tent. Dr. Pendanski followed me in, carrying a dark blue curtain. "To partition your cot off from the rest of them," he explained as he and another counselor rigged it up around my part of the room. "The boys change in here, you know." I just nodded and lay down on my cot after putting the sheets on. The mattress was lumpy and it smelled bad. The sheets were clean, but the mattress itself smelled like bad milk or something. I just lay there, my hands folded across my stomach, staring at the top of the tent. I must've fallen asleep, because after a while I heard someone's voice calling my name.
I got up and pulled back the curtain. Stanley/Caveman was standing at the entrance to the tent. "It's time for dinner." I failed to bring a fake smile to my face and followed him out. We walked in silence, and I was glad he didn't try to make me talk. I rarely talk to people. You just can't trust people, and I sure didn't want to entrust any of these strangers with all the mucky details of my past. I thought about how ironic that was. They were here for a reason too. They probably had unpleasant pasts too.
Stanley/Caveman led me through the line to get dinner and down to a table where the other D tent boys were sitting. He sat down and I squeezed onto the bench next to him. I looked down at my tray. It was literal slop. It was this real disgusting brown color, chunky, and I swore I saw green things poking out of it. I picked at it and moved it around my plate a little, then decided to try a bite. I was starving. The only thing I'd had to eat all day was a really mushy peanut butter sandwich that the guard gave me on the bus. The slop was warm and mushy, and when I chewed it seemed to spread all over my mouth. And I can't even begin to describe the taste. It was like cheeseburger casserole meets asparagus or something really odd like that. I quickly took a bite of bread, grateful that at least something was edible.
The boys were pretty quiet, occasionally trading comments with each other. But I knew why it was such an awkward silence. Me. And I was wondering why they weren't asking me about my past, since it seems that almost every person I've ever met, from teachers to neighbors, has wanted to know, when Rex/X-Ray looks at me and asks the dreaded question. "What are you here for?"
No good acting like I didn't hear him. It had been completely quiet until the question. I shrugged and looked down at my tray.
Apparently that wasn't a good enough answer for Rex/X-Ray. "Oh, c'mon," he said. "There has to be a reason. We all know why we're here. Caveman stole a pair of shoes. Magnet tried to steal a puppy." If he thought that giving examples of what the other boys had done was going to make me talk, he was W-R-O-N-G.
"Man, she's just like Zero," I heard one of the boys say.
"Yeah, 'cept Caveman finally got Zero to talk." Another replied.
"Hey, Caveman, get her to talk." This one came from Rex/X-Ray, and it sounded more like an order than a request. I asked myself why I was being so stubborn, when they were probably going to find out eventually anyway. But I wasn't used to just giving out my entire history to strangers.
"Mom said something about the state findin' her another home," That was Alan/Squid.
I was getting really annoyed. Just tell them, Rory, they'll probably get it out of you eventually anyway, a little voice in my head told me. I told it to shut up.
"I know! The aliens zapped her down here to spy on us!" I had to look up at that one. Everybody was staring at Ricky/Zigzag, who was looking back at all of them with this crazed look in his eyes. "She's probably not even human." Some of the boys chuckled.
Okay, so Ricky/Zigzag was a little out there. Check that, he was way out there.
"What'd Mom say your name was? Rory?" Again, from Rex/X-Ray. I guessed that he was the 'boss' of the tent, since he did sit at the head of the table and he was the one bugging me with all the questions.
"Yeah," I replied.
The table went quiet.
"So she does talk."
I'm not sure who said that, but I was getting really annoyed by all their comments. They were all staring at me. I just stared back.
"So, what'd you do to land you here?" Rex/X-Ray again.
"Nothing."
"Sure, that's what they all say."
I rolled my eyes and decided to lie. "I killed somebody."
A few of them believed me. A few of them looked at me cautiously, like it might be possible that I actually had killed somebody. And one person looked at me like he knew it wasn't true. I just avoided looking at him. It was almost like he could see through me, like he knew that I hadn't actually done anything that would make me deserve to get sent here. And maybe, one day, I would tell everybody the truth, but right now, I can't. I can't trust anybody.